The football adventures of Peter Miles

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Monthly Archives: March 2013

The first badge worn by the football club was the Borough coat of arms. This was used by the club from the 1950’s until replaced by an individual crest of their own.

The Coat of arms, first registered in January 1915, is a Blue shield with a silver pile. This is imposed on a gold anchor, a gold grid iron and underneath is a gold trefoil. The blue background is symblomatic of the town’s coastal location. The gold anchor symbolises St.Clement (Leigh Church), the grid iron represents St.Lawrence (Eastwood) and the trefoil the Holy Trinity (Southchurch).Out of the silver pile rises a vase of lilies representing the Virgin Mary and the parish of Prittlewell. The shield is topped by a red mural crown and a ship’s mast flying the flag of St.George.

Supporting the crest on either side is a medieval fisherman holding a net and a Cluniac monk holding a red book and a staff. The fisherman representing the traditional town industry and the Cluniac monk emblematic of the Cluniac Priory established within the town’s boundary since 1110 AD.

Underneath the crest is a scroll with the motto “Per Mare per ecclesiam” which translates as “By the sea and by the church”

In 1968 the football club adopted its own shield. The design was a traditional shield separated into four quarters with different devices in each corner.

In the top left hand corner are the three curved seaxes on a red background representing the County of Essex. The top right hand corner is an old fashioned paneled leather football. The lower left corner is a silhouette of a shrimp, emblematic of the traditional town industry and also the clubs most enduring nickname “The Shrimpers”. The nickname was certainly used in the clubs early years and a regular cartoon in the Southend Standard newspaper featured a bearded character called “Pa Shrimper”. The lower right corner contained three wavy blue lines symbolizing the nearby River Thames and the town’s coastal heritage.

During the 1970’s the club adopted a second badge which was a football boot design with the word “United” incorporated in the boot shape.

In 1986 the club’s autocratic chairman, Vic Jobson, introduced a new club badge without any consultation with the supporters. He cited copyright problems with the traditional badge but in truth it was symptomatic of his bullish manner which despite on field success would drive an irreparable wedge between Jobson and the supporters.

The shield colouration was changed to the “new” club colours of blue and yellow which had been adopted in the 1985-86 season when the club were sponsored by John Laing a building firm in which Jobson had a major interest.

The seaxes of Essex and the waves were retained but the football and the identifying symbol of the club, the shrimp, were cast aside. In its place was an anchor for some maritime symbolism. The major bone of contention was the shrimp being replaced by a meaningless lion rampant. No explanation was ever given for the presence of a lion.

The badge was replaced by an updated version for the 2000/1 season. The return to a modern incarnation of the original shrimp badge occurred in 2001 following a lengthy campaign by supporters. The old version of the badge had already been adopted by the reformed Southend United Supporters Club.

With rivers and canals in Denmark’s capital city frozen over and a biting easterly wind that made the skin on your face harden, visiting the Parken Stadion took on the mantle of an extreme groundhopping adventure. Undersoil heating at the Parken meant even with a pitchside temperature of -8 the game was never in doubt.

FC København were formed relatively recently in 1992 as something of a Danish super club have returned from the lengthy winter break with an ample lead at the top of the Superliga table. This evening’s opponents are Silkeborg from the Danish mainland and lie next to bottom with a pretty sorry away record. The home side completely dominate proceedings with the visitors seemingly unable to construct anything of note in front of goal. Their lack of ambition makes them easy pickings for a rampant home side. Much vaunted youngster Andreas Cornelius is the star of the show, his break away and calm finish for København’s third ensured the points were staying in the Parken. The visitors pulled one back with an expertly taken free kick from Jakob Mikkelsen but it was all too late.

The Parken Stadion designed by Gert Andersson was opened in 1992 at a cost of 85 million Euros. It was built over site of the old national stadium, the Idraetsparken famed its classically curved roof. The Parken has a current capacity of a little under 40,000 with much of one end lost to corporate suites it is smaller than it looks from the outside.

Aware of the Sektion12 Ultras of FC København and the infamous Danish fan referee attack at the ground in a match against Sweden in 2007, I was a little sceptical of getting a ticket in this end but my reticence proved to be unfounded. There was a capo in his metal tower at the front of Sektion 12 leading the ultras in song and choreographed bouncing, copious flag waving and beer throwing completed the boisterous but cheerful proceedings.

So that was the Parken, although it does come with the added bonus of the adjacent Østerbro Stadion, home to BK 1893 and BK Skjold. Both clubs share the 7,000 capacity athletics track for their fourth tier matches in the Denmark Series. It is a very photogenic stadium, the grandstand abutting St.James’s Church and the perimeter of the track surrounded by sculptures in nerve and sinew straining sporting activity. Sadly all leagues outside of the Superliga were still on their winter break so no football was taking place.

Why are many football stadium enthusiasts so keen on floodlight pylons? Sparingly used although essential to the development of the game since the 1950’s what draws a man to these electrical landmarks? I think the answer is just that, they are invariably the first sighting of a football ground when arriving in a distant town or foreign field for the initial time. Like viaducts, textile mills, canal locks they are also fast becoming somewhat redolent of bygone times.

Darwen FC claim to have staged the first ever football match under floodlights as long ago as 1878. Of course there was no national grid then so any use of artificial lighting would be battery powered and seemed dependant on luck rather than a sustainable power supply. Bramall Lane and the ground of Thames Ironworks, the forebears of West Ham United, also conducted early experiments with floodlighting.

That forward thinking innovator on the pitch, Herbert Chapman, also saw the light earlier than most when he had lights installed at Highbury in the 1930’s. However, Arsenal could not gain Football League sanction to use them. So once the authorities caught up some twenty years later it fell to Southampton to become the first club to “officially” use floodlights to stage a match. The friendly against Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic was a resounding success and electrical lighting was here to stay. It opened a new source of income for many clubs with European friendlies against exotic opponents becoming de rigueur in the 1950’s.

Sadly a modern trend with ever increasing stadium sizes that the traditional pylons at many grounds have been replaced by roof mounted lighting, Old Trafford, Elland Road and Anfield were among the first to ditch their traditional corner pylons. Newer builds like Huddersfield’s John Smith’s Stadium and Wigan’s DW Stadium have thankfully been constructed with traditional corner pylons. There has also been a modern trend towards “stick” pylons replacing the big industrial looking pylons of “proper” grounds. To the purist these stick pylons are very much an anathema.

There are, of course, multiple different floodlight manufacturers and stadium architects, so the purpose of this article is to highlight some of the more amazing floodlight pylons from around the globe. Here are some of my personal favourites in no particular order.

Southend United’s only ever visit to the famous twin towers of Wembley Stadium came in the most unusual of circumstances.

Their away fixture at Clapton Orient’s Lea Bridge Road stadium was moved to Wembley Stadium as Orient’s ground had been closed following a bad injury to a Torquay United player resulting from the close proximity of the pitch barrier to the playing surface. While remedial work was carried out the East Londoners were forced to hire the national stadium in order to stage two home games. The first resulted in an easy 3-0 win over Brentford in front of a healthy 8,000 plus crowd. However, the visit of Southend United attracted a crowd of only 1,916 which must have looked very odd in vast stadium with a then capacity of 100,000.

However, the Southend side turned in a distinctly unmemorable performance at the famous stadium. It should be said that Ted Birnie’s team selection was something of an experiment following the FA Cup exit at the hands of Torquay the previous weekend. He dramatically dropped skipper Tommy Dixon and brought in young Bob Ward. Furthermore Donovan moved to inside left and Johnson took over at left half. Arthur Compton despite being right footed was seconded to the outside left berth. Clapton Orient’s line up featured Rollo Jack, son of former Southend manager Bob Jack and brother to David, a future Shrimpers manager.

Southend had a good first half however and had plenty of chances before scoring in the 25th minute. Southend gained a corner kick and Fred Barnett launched a deep kick into the O’s penalty area and Jimmy Shankly’s deft header back allowed Mickey Jones the easiest of chances to nod the ball over the line from close range with Orient keeper Harry Blackwell unsighted among a ruck of player. In the next period of play Shankly skimmed the crossbar twice and Barnett had a powerful shot cannon back of the upright.

This was an equaliser following Clapton’s early breakthrough when a rare fumble by Billy Moore in the Southend goal allowed Jack Fowler to open the scoring with a virtually unguarded goal. The veteran forward was a constant thorn in the visitors side with his drive and clever play, a vital factor was Bob Ward’s nervousness in tackling the powerful Orient forward.

Into the second half and the Blues nearly took the lead through Dickie Donoven. His first effort was a speculative long range effort which caught Blackwell off guard in the Orient net. He was mightily relieved to see the ball just clear his crossbar. The a Donoven corner slipped out of Blackwell’s hands and was just about to cross the line when Ernie Morley managed to hook the ball to safety.

However Southend’s downfall came when Crompton, their best player in the opening period, was strangely neglected in the second half. This meant the side lost its shape and creativity and the home side took control of the encounter.

The O’s took the lead on 67 minutes Johnson misjudged a challenge and Reg Tricker easily converted a one on one opportunity against Moore.

The winning goal came on 73 minutes and was shrouded in controversy. Tricker played a throughball for Fowler who was clearly offside but both the referee and the linesman failed to award the decision and while the Southend rearguard appealed and waited for a whistle Fowler all but walked the ball into an empty net.

Shankly had a late chance to reduce the arrears but the side had already suffered a fatal body blow. The dubious offside call ensured that the clubs only visit to the old Wembley Stadium would be marked with a defeat.